The State of California has now banned single-use plastic grocery bags. Supermarkets now charge consumers 10 cents per paper shopping bag. Why did California pass such a law? To cut down on environmental problems and landfill waste caused by dumping plastic bags like the ones we used to get in supermarkets - free - to carry our purchases in. Plastic bag ban. A good gesture? Good environmental policy? Let’s see. Let’s take a look at the reality of the government banning plastic bags, and forcing consumers to pay a fee for paper bags.
The plastic bags people got when they shopped for food and other items served two purposes. First, they were useful for carrying the food or other items to their car and then into their residence. Secondly, the plastic bags were useful as garbage bags.
Why don’t people simply use the environmentally friendly reusable cloth bags for shopping? Many people did. They have to take the cloth bag(s) to the supermarket every time they shop for food. Oh great, another thing to remember. Yes, shoppers could keep the cloth bags in the trunk or backseat of their vehicle but the cloth bags could get dirty and possibly be contaminated by other stuff in the vehicle. I have seen a number of health reports stating that sometimes these reusable cloth bags can contain harmful bacteria, from having various foods packed in them. Health officials recommend that consumers wash the cloth bags EVERY time they use them, to avoid contamination. Yeah, right, just what people need, another chore. Why not simply use the environmentally friendly paper bag? Because paper bags often rip AND they make lousy garbage bags: liquid seeps through.
So that's why people used single-use plastic bags for carrying items they purchased and for garbage.
Now, let’s take a look at what happens when the supermarkets in California ban single-use plastic bags and charge 10 cents per paper bag. If the supermarket no longer give shoppers plastic bags and charges 10 cents per paper bag, people still need to have trash bags. So, they will probably buy 13-gallon plastic trash bags, costing about 12 cents per bag (that's assuming that ALL plastic bags are not banned). And consumers would still need remember to take their privately purchased reusable food bag(s) to the supermarket when they go, to carry their purchases out of the store. Let’s continue. If consumers bring a cloth bag to the supermarket, and don't wash them every time they use them, they might end up with an infectious disease. And if they buy 10-cent paper bags they may just end up throwing them away and not using them as garbage bags, because they leak. So, in the end consumers will probably have to buy plastic trash bags, for daily trash usage, and will thus still use a huge number of landfill-choking plastic bags (there are over 12 million households in California). Instead of getting plastic bags for free it would now cost consumers about 12 cents per 13-gallon plastic trash bag, just for trash. End result? People will still use millions of the environmentally hated plastic bags, in a larger size. At more cost - and more inconvenience - for the consumer.
In the end, will the ban on supermarket plastic bags eliminate the billions of plastic bags ending up in the landfills of California? No. All those "extra" now necessary 13-gallon plastic Glad/Hefty trash bags will still end up in the landfills. Or, if people in California (and other places which ban single-use plastic shopping bags) want to save money, or stop using plastic trash bags, perhaps they will just throw their trash in the streets. Yeah, that's a good idea. Not.
Banning single-use plastic supermarket bags. A good idea ... that doesn't work. The only thing this plastic bag ban in the State of California will do is make it more inconvenient and more expensive to shop for food and other items, for the 38 million residents who live, and shop, in California.
Oh, I almost forgot. The supermarkets charge shoppers 10 cents per paper bag. I did some research and the wholesale cost of these types of paper bags is less than 4 cents. Thus supermarkets make 6 cents on the every paper bag they sell to shoppers. That's a 150% profit. Banning the plastic grocery bag is a very good law ... for supermarkets! And bag manufacturers. To make matters worse, one of my local supermarkets mysteriously removed 4 self-checkout stations, so you now have to go through a checkout line manned by a human checker, making it much more time-consuming and inconvenient for shoppers. Why did my upscale local supermarket, Pavilions, remove the self-check stations? I don't know. Maybe because the self-checkout can't scan for the extra 10 cents and can't dispense paper bags?
The plastic supermarket bag ban. Is banning plastic supermarket bags a good idea? Or a stupid idea passed by stupid voters that accomplishes little except inconvenience and higher prices for consumers?
California voters decided that yes, it's a good idea.
Congratulations to stupid California voters. For passing the stupid plastic supermarket bag ban.
UPDATE: From the Chicago Sun Times, March 2017
Reusable shopping bags
According to Charles Gerba, a famed University of Arizona microbiologist, 97 percent of shoppers had never cleaned their reusable bags, creating a breeding ground for potentially deadly bacteria. Randomly tested bags from shoppers contained bacteria levels high enough to cause a slew of serious health problems, Gerba said, including food-borne illnesses that leave children especially vulnerable.
I don't want to say I told you so but I told you so.
